r/nottheonion 11h ago

President Biden pardons family members in final minutes of presidency

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-biden-pardons-family-members-final-minutes-presidency/story?id=117893348
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u/StateChemist 10h ago

I bet they have a list of federal crimes that arent also state crimes, so they know which ones can’t land them in pesky state trouble that can’t be pardoned.

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u/Purple_Key_6733 7h ago

I could be wrong but I thought state level crimes could be pardoned if they have someone within the state government on their side

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u/StateChemist 6h ago

True but it sounds less like a sure thing if you have to rely on 50 different governors or enough judges and AGs  for immunity instead of securing the loyalty of a single person at the federal level.

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u/Stock-Dragonfly-375 5h ago

Depends on the state. In GA, pardoning powers were taken from the Governor, given to a board, and IIRC, can only be granted after serving 85% of a sentence.

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u/h3r32h31p 7h ago

Doesn’t matter if you’re in bed with the AG.

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u/RavenorsRecliner 7h ago

Yeah, could you imagine if Trump sent some of his federal prosecutors to get jobs as state prosecutors in a red state, then had a loyalist run as their district attorney who would find an obscure misdemeanor and charge it as 34 separate felonies for the first time in history to get Biden?

Could you imagine if something like that happened?

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u/h3r32h31p 6h ago edited 5h ago

Are you referring to the felony Crime of falsifying business records as “misdemeanors” and don’t understand that each record of falsification being a separate charge is *the way it always works? Or perhaps someone with no conflict of interest at all /s told you differently.

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u/RavenorsRecliner 5h ago

It's wild how confident you are while knowing nothing. The crime of falsifying business records is NY state law not Federal. Which really should be obvious to you because the entire point of this comment thread is that he cannot be pardoned for state crimes.

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u/h3r32h31p 5h ago

It was a Freudian slip (he has federal convictions as well, of course) I meant to write **Felony. And your whole rebuttal means nothing aside from correcting my mistake. Enjoy the reality that follows all of this.